Heretofore, it has been well known to utilize a cup or jar or similar container to collect the urine specimen from the patient by having the patient urinate directly into the container. In practice, however, the container of urine may often be exposed unduly to airborne bacteria and contamination and may be contaminated from other sources as well. For example, it is often necessary that the specimen be transferred to various testing containers, such as, centrifuge tubes and the like, and additional contamination may thereby result. Further contamination may occur when the analyzing technician requires a measured quantity of a specimen so that it is necessary to utilize several receptacles for purposes of the measurement and storage of the selected quantity. Contamination can also occur due to bacteria on the surface of the opening of the specimen collector container or through overflow or imprecise filling of the container.
Midstream collectors have been developed in the past which have recognized the problems of contamination of the specimen. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,832,738 to Kliemann issued Sept. 3, 1974 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,711,871 to Sherin issued Jan. 23, 1973 disclose sanitary liquid specimen collectors having enlarged mouths and tops to seal these mouths after the specimen has been collected. U.S. Pat. No. 3,923,040 to Beach issued Dec. 2, 1975 discloses the use of a graduated tube having a funnel with a flexible spout wherein the entire assembly is sealed by a cap fitting around the specimen tube and spout. In this apparatus, the collector tube is in the form of a common centrifuge tube so that it may be utilized for analysis purposes as well. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,518,164 issued June 30, 1970 to Andelin et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,433 issued May 31, 1977 to Crippa and U.S. Pat. No. 4,106,490 issued Aug. 15, 1978 to Spilman et al all disclose sanitary urine collection apparatus including a graduated tube which may be utilized for analysis purposes, especially with a centrifuge apparatus. A problem in the prior art, though, has been the danger of breakage of the specimen tube when centrifuged, especially where the collector tube is formed with a sediment trap at its lower end. Indeed, no prior art known to the applicant has successfully incorporated a collector tube with a small sediment trap at its closed end which sediment trap is constructed to withstand the forces of centrifuging.
The present invention, however, provides a novel specimen collector which allows the sampling of a midstream portion of fluid in such manner as to allow the disposal of the excess fluid while providing a measured amount thereof. Further, the present device has a reinforced sediment trap and is adaptable for use with standard centrifuge machines without requiring transfer of the fluid to a special centrifuge tube.